In my freshman English class, I was terrified to ask questions, to point out typos and inconsistencies, to do anything that might seem like an accusation of incompetence, because all such inquiries were invariably met with our teacher’s universal snappy comeback “Who in this room has a degree?” However efficient it is in discipline, this type of academic domination is useless in seeking understanding because it prevents challenges and emphasizes authority over logic. According to Paulo Freire’s “‘Banking’ Concept of Education”, this is what education has always looked like: the teacher wields absolute unceasing power over the student and the students meekly accept their own subjugation. However, with the increasing commercialization of the education system, the newer consumer model, described by Frank Bruni in “In College Turmoil, Signs of a Changed Relationship with Students”, has emerged in which the students as the consumers wield ultimate power over the teachers to the detriment of their education. Ultimately, the two models disagree on the proper balance of power in the classroom: the banking model empowers …show more content…
That is, teachers would develop non-negotiable criteria and content that will be covered in a course. For younger students, this will make up the vast majority of the content of their classes, but as students age and gain interest and maturity, less of the content will be dictated to them. Naturally, this will require a large amount of discernment on the part of teachers, and they will surely make occasional mistakes, but if teachers believe that their primary responsibility is to contribute to students’ perceptions of the world instead of restricting them, then these instances will become the exception and not the rule. Furthermore, the more skilled at rational thinking teachers are, the better balanced and regulated (and so more effective) this system will